ABSTRACT
Detective Scala, tunefully humming “Una Furtiva Lagrima,” walked through the streets of New York, looking for what he affectionately termed “my boys.” This family of his included weepy-faced grannies who panhandled, breezy confidence men, granite-jawed mugs with heads like totem poles, subway latrine degenerates, angel-faced pickpockets—in fact all the portraits he had been instrumental in sending to the Rogues’ Gallery. But to him, and with some degree of stern affection, they were “my boys.” He had one of those rare memories that sucked in through one glance the salient lines and colors of a face and froze them in some photographic cell of his brain. There was nothing melodramatic about his pursuits, none of the cops-and-robbers attitude of the lurid melodramas. He hummed as he walked and he mocked as he hunted, greeting a familiar face now squirming a little, “So you’re back in circulation? Well—get yourself a job. Keep on the up-and-up and they’ll never shave your head. And don’t forget—keep your mitts in your own pockets.” Scala would laugh and move on. Never an attempt to shake down an ex-convict or to hound him until he was forced to pull a second job. Just a piece of advice, a chuckle—and he moved on. But he never forgot a face.
